Unilever gets go-ahead from UK shareholders for London move

Unilever's plans to become a single, more simply-structured entity based in London have taken a step forward after shareholders in the UK overwhelmingly back the plan.

Nonetheless, the Dutch-Anglo company must still overcome growing support in the Netherlands for a Green Party bill to pass through parliament that would slap the company with an exit fee of €11 billion, should the move go ahead.

Unilever announced that over 99% of its UK investors voted to base the company in London. 

The vote came three weeks after the group's Dutch shareholders also voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move.

A move to London would put an end to the longstanding dual structure that has been in place since Unilever's formation some 90 years ago following a merger between a Dutch margarine company and a British soap maker.

The company failed in a previous bid to transfer the whole business to the Netherlands in 2018.

Unilever had said it planned to officially unify on November 29, but the growing support for the law in the Netherlands that would cost multinationals leaving the country billions in additional taxes may yet put a halt to the plans.

The Dutch Green Party said last week that it intended to push ahead with a vote on the bill which, if given parliamentary approval, would impose €11 billion in exit fees retroactively on Unilever for leaving the country.

Earlier this year, the company said that if the bill were to be passed into law, its plans to relocate from Rotterdam would need to be scrapped.

The planned law is designed to apply to companies with revenues of over €750 million who leave the country for lower tax jurisdictions.

To become law, the bill must be passed by a majority in both houses of Dutch parliament in a process that may take months to play out and a bar that it might struggle to cross.

Despite receiving legal advice that the proposed bill would be in violation of EU law, Bart Snels, the Green MP behind the initiative, said that he would not withdraw it.

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